26
CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY TRENDS 2020
Image: Florian Olivo
Media and entertainment The war for your attention
T
he audio industry has fully plugged in. In 2019, a survey found that 32% of adults in the US had listened to a podcast within the last month, almost triple the amount a decade before, with 65% of active listeners starting in the last three years. And our relationship with audio is changing: radio reached masses but digital audio is personalised and targeted. As the market matures, competitors have broken into Apple’s iTunes monopoly. Spotify aims to be the world’s premier audio company, and the streaming service grabbed attention in 2019 with acquisitions of podcast startups Gimlet, Anchor and Parcast. Others with large existing audiences are expanding their reach, such as
Pandora, with a self-service hub that allows creators to submit their own podcasts, or Google with its own app. The rush is understandable since the current state of monetisation in podcasting mimics the early internet days: podcasts monetise at $0.01 per hour, roughly 10 times less than radio. Marketing managers think product exposure on podcasts can drive sales, with advertising often based on the number of exposures, but not all exposures are created equal. Due to consumers’ limited visual capacity, their attention is very selective. In today’s cluttered visual media environment, we are bombarded with entertainment opportunities on multiple screens. In a recent earnings report, Netflix
explained that “we compete with (and lose to) Fortnite [a computer game] more than HBO”. Audio is, in that regard, a refuge for the senses and an under-monetised hub of consumers’ attention. Investors are taking notice: Luminary Media, Acast, Castbox and Wondery have all raised money in the US, while Majelan, Entale, Sybel and Podimo (Heartcore portfolio company) are leading the way in Europe. Beyond podcasts, verticallyintegrated audio apps are reinventing from first principles, delivering immersive experiences uncompromised by screen time. By targeting a specific use case, audio-first companies aim to create full-stack experiences. Calm and Headspace, in the
